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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226669">raise'em on rhythm and blues</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evidenceofthingsnotseen/pseuds/evidenceofthingsnotseen'>evidenceofthingsnotseen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, a short moment about why they never had kids</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:01:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,322</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evidenceofthingsnotseen/pseuds/evidenceofthingsnotseen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s no secret that Dani loves children. Just like it’s no secret that Jamie loves Dani. Jamie sees the way she looks at babies in strollers on the street, toddlers on the playground at the park. It’s how they came together, really. Dani would never have come to Bly if not to care for the children. So one day, a few years after they’ve settled in Vermont, she asks. They’re sitting on the couch, Jamie tucked into Dani’s side, letting her lover play with her hair while they watch the evening news.</p><p>“Do you want kids?”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dani Clayton/Jamie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>308</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>raise'em on rhythm and blues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was knocking around in my head for several reasons, the main one being that it would have made the narrative almost unbearable if they had had children who would have lost their mother to the beast in the jungle.</p><p>This is set approximately 1991.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s no secret that Dani loves children. Just like it’s no secret that Jamie loves Dani. Jamie sees the way she looks at babies in strollers on the street, toddlers on the playground at the park. It’s how they came together, really. Dani would never have come to Bly if not to care for the children. So one day, a few years after they’ve settled in Vermont, she asks. They’re sitting on the couch, Jamie tucked into Dani’s side, letting her lover play with her hair while they watch the evening news.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you want kids?” Jamie turns to look her in the eye when she asks it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dani eyes widen. “What?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Kids,” Jamie repeats, reaching out to grab her hand. “Rug rats. Ankle biters. Do you want them?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you?” Dani counters, still looking shocked. Jamie grins.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’d love anything that we did together.” It’s a turn for her, because kids had never been a part of her plan. But the idea that they might have some little person with a piece of each of them inside, growing like a well-nurtured flower. Well, it’s enough to make her miss someone she’s never met. But she hasn’t got her heart set on it either. She doesn’t want anything Dani wouldn’t want.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Jamie,” Dani breathes and Jamie turns away, tucking herself deeper into Dani’s arms. She knows the answer now, just from the disappointment in her voice. “I used to want them, I think.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jamie doesn’t respond. She knows Dani will explain further. She pulls Dani’s hand up to her lips and kisses her knuckles softly, waiting. “When I was younger, when I was with Edmund. He would hold me. I didn’t want to be held. I wanted to hold someone, like he did. And I thought that meant I wanted kids.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I see,” Jamie sighs. “But it wasn’t kids.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know then.” Dani’s voice drops to a whisper. “That I could be the one in a relationship who might hold the other.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Glad you got over that.” Despite her bravado, Jamie is decidedly the little spoon of the relationship. Just like they are positioned now, sitting on the couch in a tangle of limbs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And I do love kids,” Dani adds. Jamie nods, feels soft lips ghost over her temple. “You know I love Flora and Miles. But I couldn’t do that to any child. I couldn’t be a mother when I’m just waiting…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“For your beast in the jungle,” Jamie finishes dully. It’s been years now, without incident. Long enough that she has started to believe, foolishly maybe, that the day will never come. That the Lady in the Lake will drown, drown permanently, in all the goodness inside of Dani and they’ll know a lasting peace.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.” Dani’s voice is breaking, and Jamie’s heart breaks with it. “I’m sorry I can’t be that for you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, love, no.” Jamie turns around again to face Dani, to kiss her and assure her. “I just wanted to know. If you wanted that, we could.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Could we, though?” Dani laughs bitterly through her tears. Jamie looks down at their matching claddagh rings. Their marriage is fairly new, and not recognized by any government. Their commitment, their love, isn’t enough proof for some that they should adopt. The world is too slow to change.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you wanted it,” Jamie reminds her, because she needs Dani to know that she isn’t trying to talk her into anything, “we could use a donor.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And which one of us would…?” Dani trails off. Jamie really had not thought that far ahead. Having children had not been a part of her plan, being pregnant even less so. But for Dani, she would.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Either.” Jamie runs a thumb across her cheek, stopping a tear in its track. “But I think you would look very sexy with a baby bump.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dani laughs and shoves her back a little, sniffling to stop her crying completely. Jamie laughs too. “I’m serious. You’d be so hot with our baby inside you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The phrasing seems to catch Dani off guard. Their baby. The baby they aren’t having, that they’ll never have. Still, they allow themselves to go down the rabbit hole of imagination.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’d be a cow,” Dani disagrees. She holds her hands out in a ring to emphasize her next point. “With huge ankles. My mom always complained that I gave her huge ankles.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The tidbit about her mother, rare even now, sparks images in her head of Dani as a child, a little towheaded thing with bright eyes and a laugh too big for her body.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then I would wait on you, hand and huge-ankled foot.” Jamie puts her chin up triumphantly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Would they call you ‘mum’?” Dani affects her favorite, very bad accent and Jamie laughs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure. And you’d be mom.” Jamie holds out the flat ‘o’ sound, doing her worst Midwestern accent. Dani always insists she doesn’t sound so different than the other locals, but Jamie shares looks with the Vermonters in town when she uses a particularly Midwestern phrase.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dani shoves her again, affectionately. “Would she have a green thumb, like you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure, but she’d look just like you.” Jamie isn’t sure how they decided they were having a daughter, but it adds to the magic of their little fantasy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“God, she’d be such a bad cook.” Dani laughs a little. Many a misadventure they’d had in the kitchen, not the least of which was setting the smoke alarms off when they’d gotten engaged, having forgotten their meal on the stove entirely in lieu of other activities. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uncle Owen would teach her.” That was one advantage of their little found family being originally assembled as members of staff; there were skills far and wide to be shared and taught.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uncle Owen,” Dani repeats, her eyes shining. “I love her already.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jamie kisses Dani softly. “Me too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They break from their fantasy, their minds not swayed. It’s nice to think about, but it isn’t real.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The news is over now and it’s nearly time for Saturday Night Live. Jamie never knows who the host is, but she likes the musical guests and loves the way Dani insists on watching, despite rarely making it through the second sketch before she’s snoring softly, slumped against the arm of the couch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The intro music plays and Don Pardo’s wavering voice announces the acts for the night. Dani yanks the blanket off the couch and pulls it over the both of them, a sure sign that she’s going to fall asleep any minute. The actor or whoever is giving his unfunny monologue when Dani whispers in her ear.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can feel her.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Goosebumps ripple over Jamie’s skin. They don’t talk about her often, rarely refer to her as a ‘her’ at all. Calling the Lady of the Lake a ‘beast in the jungle’ makes her feel a little less real. Jamie takes a deep breath and swallows. “Do you feel her right now?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jamie breathes a sigh of relief.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“When I look at children, especially little girls. That’s when I feel her.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The relief is sucked from her chest, leaves Jamie gasping.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She wants to take them like she wanted to take Flora. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>jealous.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Dani’s voice is grave but unwavering. “I think she was a mother. I think she had a little girl.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Baby, don’t,” Jamie begs. These thoughts are dark and she wishes Dani wasn’t thinking about her at all, especially not about what she might have been like in life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And every time I see a child, I can feel myself thinking how adorable they are. But it’s never louder than her, screaming at me to snatch them up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jamie wants to cover her ears, to hide from the wretchedness, and equally so, wants to protect Dani from the loathsome feelings she has to endure, keeping that </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing </span>
  </em>
  <span>inside her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I won’t do that to our little girl.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, well that's off my chest. Hope you enjoyed.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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